Reborn
by DarkSigyn
Summary: There is the ultimate sacrifice of giving your own life for the one you love. One can die in many ways, erasing your existence, making everyone believe that you are gone. Evan chose the one crossing the point of no return. So it seemed. But he was betrayed. Muirfield betrayed him.
1. Hell - part one

The concept of Heaven and Hell was something written down in a book, something that always had been a story one told his children about to make them be nice and well-behaved, and most of all nothing a scientist at heart like him could have believed in. Yet here he was. In complete darkness. Alone. But awake. Conscious. He could remember the pain, the impact, the weariness that followed. He even was able to recall how his knees had given in, forsaking their duty. What he wasn't sure about was if he had sensed hitting the ground or not, if this memory was something his mind had brought up because it was the logical result of falling. Evan knew that he had died. So why was he still here?  
Evan had felt life bleeding out, just like the blood bled into his body from the shot wound. He had been wrong, so utterly wrong and the torment of this realization was a hundred times more painful than that hole he pressed his hand against. This thought, this perception was still present as if he was caught in that flash of a moment. Maybe this was in fact Hell and it wasn't a pit of fire, melting down the flesh off his bones, it was reliving his regrets and Evan had a lot of them. Layla Burrows to begin with. Layla had been only 22 and he had failed her. He remembered it perfectly. How she ended up on his table, dying because he had made a wrong choice, because he had hesitated, because he had been afraid. They had cleared him from her death, because even a more experienced doctor could have made the same choice. It was a 50/50 chance. It was something that could happen. But not to him. He never had been able to forgive himself. So he had run. He had left his family, his home, his life, trying to run and hide from his own guilt. But one cannot run from something that hides deep inside of you.  
And then he had met Cat. She was so strong, so fierce, so independent, and so determined. Cat was exactly how Evan had pictured what Layla might have become if he hadn't killed her. She made him smile and for the first time he had felt like he didn't have to run from himself anymore, or to fear commitment. And with her being drawn to those bad guys, not fearing their dark sides but actually preferring was hid in the shadows of their character Cat had slowly but inevitably stolen his heart. Evan had hoped that she wouldn't be scared away by his past, like he could trust her with everything. She was the only one that he could imagine to accept him, like she was able to glimpse behind his mask of smiles and witty remarks. All the other women had helped him to distract himself from this weight he dragged along with him that pulled him down; but they were only numbing that soreness, like a few glasses of Scotch would do. Not Cat. She actually could have been the one helping to forgive himself. And when he had learned that she was in danger he had stopped thinking straight, he had panicked. Evan had been back in that OR again, desperately trying to save a dying woman whose life was slipping through his hands. He had known instantly - as the evidence was piling itself around her - that he needed to save her. He had sworn to himself that this time he wouldn't fail. Evan couldn't believe how blind he had been, how obsessive. JT had tried his best to warn him. He still could hear that man's voice in his now nonexistent ears: "I am trying to save your life!"  
Catherine had tried to do the same, she had tried to keep him safe. Evan didn't blame her for being dishonest, for bending the truth around him, for trying to mislead him. In the end all she had tried to do was to save him. He should have trusted her. Just a little more. He should have given her more time. He should have stopped digging and she would have told him everything eventually. How perfectly did he remember that night he had looked up to her window seeing her on that fire escape kissing that creature. Vincent. How wrong had he been about him? Even still couldn't believe how blinded he had been. How much he had wronged this man who had risked his own life over and over to protect the women they both loved. In the end at least his eyes had finally been able to see. In the end at least Evan hadn't failed Cat for once. He had saved her life. His life was the only thing left worthy to give to her. They wouldn't have made it with him. Cat would have insisted on him going through that door first and on Vincent helping him through. Muirfield would have shot her, captured her, and Vincent would have stayed back, and he would have ended up dead anyway.  
So this was Hell; being alone all by himself only his guilt and regrets to accompany him, for him to eventually go insane. Evan couldn't imagine anything more accurate. There couldn't possibly be something worse than this. At least this confirmed his guilt to him. He had ruined a family, killed a young woman, almost got killed the only woman he had ever truly loved, risked the life of Vincent, and JT, and probably even Tess. There were people who had done less to deserve this, so he would accept it. Going through his regrets over and over again wasn't something new to him. This strange ache, this tucking, this pulse however he sensed right now wasn't something he had expected. Evan could feel it, like it was physical. With that realization it seemed he could sense his heart racing and with that a hot wave suddenly washed over him, rushed in his ears, filling him up with panic. What was happening? Suddenly his body obviously had reappeared, he could feel himself breathe shallowly and quickly, and how his chest heaved and lowered, like something was rebuilding him. And there it came, first just like a hallucination, a hint, a threat, but growing and increasing, like someone had gathered the ends of his nerves. Evan tensed, he didn't just sense it, and he definitely tensed. There it was: that heat. What an irony. He almost laughed, yet he couldn't. Whoever or whatever had found those strains of sense running through what appeared his body suddenly crushed them. And all that was left of Evan Marks was nothing but excruciating physical pain.


	2. Hell - part two

Swallowed by darkness, all his other senses seemed to have been devoured by it apart from feeling, which he knew as a scientist only heightened that what he perceived. Evan tried his best to numb this torment with his mind, with rational thoughts but it was impossible. His nerves were on fire and his heart was pumping acid through his veins. There was no way for him to move, though he knew that he had to be somewhat corporeal to perceive a pain like this. At least a brain that was processing pain. His muscles tensed ant yet there was no movement, like his body was covered with cement. Evan knew better, he knew that there were chemical substances that possessed the ability to paralyze a body while inducing pain. Yet this would mean that he was alive and he knew that this was impossible. Again his thoughts were swallowed and he swore he learned right now what it felt like to be consumed by lava.  
Evan wanted to scream. It was nothing but instinct. He knew he had lungs to fill with air and a chest to move and press it out. The pain was like ink coloring a picture that had been drawn with water, like a nightmare turning true. And Evan knew he had a throat but he couldn't use it, there was even no way of swallowing. It felt like it was filled with barbwire. His agony was accompanied by panic.  
Was this really Hell? Or was he alive? Or was Hell being alive? Was this how it felt to die? Was fading into death a long path filled with regrets and agony? Had he been so despicable to deserve something like this?  
His lungs felt like being filled with the damp of boiled water and his muscles rebelled, screaming, wanting to move, to rip out whatever claimed this throat all the way into his chest. Evan could feel his hands cramp, his feet, his shoulders. And then his eyes. They felt like foreign objects moving in his skull. He knew if he had been able to move he would have tried to tear them out.  
It must have been instinct or rather reflex to shut them tight; Evan could feel it. Usually there's still something to see with closed eyelids if it's not already dark. He was aware of that. Suddenly the agony became a sound, was accompanied by it. So high and loud that it was deafening, almost unbearable, but the torment he was in was yet stronger. And it became a color orange, red and white, just like he was staring at the sun with his eyes closed. Evan could hear his racing heartbeat his breathing from the inside. And then, abruptly a jolt, a shock, killing everything, just for a second. Like being pulled underwater. Just like that, something dragged him up again with his heart racing just like his breath and pumping acid and fire through his body. Another jolt, another shock, but with that, everything turned soft.  
Evan was still in pain, and most of all sore, but in comparison to how he had awoken it was nothing. Like a scratch compared to a shattered spine. Instinctively he wanted to move, yet again it was impossible. At least it was better now. He felt how he was calming down slowly. Yet he wasn't back to how he had been. Still he could hear himself and all the sounds that made perfectly clear that he was somewhat alive.  
Everything appeared to him like he was floating underwater. There was a faint light and - which was most terrifying - sound. Evan wasn't able to distinguish them. Yet there was no doubt about it and he didn't know what was worse: absolute silence and darkness, or these hints of the opposite. One thing, however, he was sure of. If something like Hell did really exist: it would be definitely like that.  
Now with the pain only being a numb ache he was alone with his thoughts again, with his memories, pictures flashing in front of his inner eyes. They say one can see your life running backwards when one dies, so why didn't that happen? Why wasn't it happening right now? Everything that appeared was nothing but his final moments, his final errors among with his worst one. It repeated itself over and over again.


	3. Resurrection - part one

Sometimes the silence that follows a storm is so disturbing that one keeps wondering if the storm isn't still ahead and one keeps waiting for it to finally hit, even though it has already passed. It's because the sky hasn't cleared and the dark clouds are still hiding the sun. Everything seems surreal, like the world has turned upside down, like it rewinds instead of playing. Still one sits and waits in tensed anticipation until that first ray of golden light cuts through the dim veil, until the ceiling of clouds tears open and the world drowns in all colors imaginable.  
Just like this it was for Evan as his eyes first caught the artificial light surrounding him. After what seemed to be an eon of darkness finally there was something else. He didn't care that it hurt like a thousand glowing needles piercing into his eyeballs. And he recklessly was oblivious to all the other things his body perceived or rather didn't. A part of him knew that a typical physical reaction to this would have been to inhale quickly, to tense or flinch. Yet he didn't. Apart of him knew that instinctively he would have sat up and look around, moving his head. Evan's body surely tried to, yet it didn't happen. And maybe it was for the best of it that he just was utterly relieved to finally see something and feel something. Because Evan was definitely able to feel the clothing, covering his skin and the fabric of the sheets he was tucked into, as well as the needle in his left hand and most certainly the tube in his throat. This was when he panicked.  
The first clear word that raced through his mind was: white. Everything surrounding him was completely white. And it was even more terrifying than the darkness before, than the question if he was dead or not. Because a tube in his throat, a needle in his hand and that increasing, annoying deafening sound of his heart monitor told him that he wasn't dead, but worse. Evan just knew it. Muirfield.  
Yet this wasn't the reason why he panicked. Not entirely at least. It was the fact, that his senses worked, but he wasn't able to move.  
There was nothing more that he wanted to do than ripping this tube out of his throat which made him feel like he was suffocating, even though it probably had kept him alive. Evn tried to calm himself down, but he didn't get a chance because the door to his room was smashed open and a nurse came in hectically, because of his monitor.  
Since he couldn't move there was no way seeing her or him but it would be logical that a nurse would come in such a case. After a second the woman stepped towards him and silenced the monitor. And then she placed her hand on his forehead gently.  
"Relax, Evan", she said softly and smiled at him warmly, yet there was a deep sadness in her blue eyes and he became even more aware of her not telling him that everything was okay, that everything would be fine and that there was nothing to worry about.  
Still he tried to listen to her. After being alone with himself in total darkness he was more than happy to see a gentle face just like hers and she was absolutely beautiful with her pale skin, her deep blue eyes and her long red hair. And the sadness surrounding her like a cloud just made her more intriguing. Even as she frowned.  
"Can you hear me?" she asked concerned.  
Yes, he could hear her, he could feel her clammy hand on his skin, see her eyes slightly narrow, how she bit onto her lower lip. Evan was also able to sense it when she took her hand away to place it onto his wrist, and her movement as she turned around to whomever walked through the door behind her.  
"What's the matter?" a man asked.  
"His heart rate went through the roof without any reason so I checked on him?" she almost sounded like she was questioning herself, her voice willed with insecureness - was she scared? "And I found him like that. Eyelids opened, but he doesn't react. I can't tell if he is awake or not."  
"Let me see", the man stepped next to her and she retreated instantly, letting to of Evan's wrist and moving out of his view.  
Instantly he recognized that man who held a little flashlight into his eyes. Rage claimed his body like a fire a dried tree. He wanted to jump up, wrap his fingers around his neck and squeeze. Evan yearned for his muscles to explode into movement, begged his lungs to fill themselves with air, pleaded for his vocal cords to create a scream. Nothing. All he could do was to stare back at Sorenson and he wasn't even sure if he could express just a fragment of what he felt right now.  
"Interesting", that despicable man straightened up and looked at the woman next to him. "His pupils show reaction, but apparently the narcotics are still paralyzing him." Sorenson looked back at him. "Either he becomes immune to them or his metabolism has changed more than we have anticipated." his head moved away, into her reaction. "Watch him, Ms. Salter." With that he left.


	4. Resurrection - part two

Evan didn't know her name and he couldn't see her from where she was standing. Still he was able to hear her unsteady breathing and how she eventually inhaled deeply and exhaled just the same. Of course this made him wonder, since it was the only thing he was capable of right now. He didn't know her name; and never he had seen her before, yet there was something familiar about her, Ms. Salter, no agent.  
And she stepped towards him again into his line of sight and Evan knew that she wasn't a person like Claire: a good actress, perfect in faking. Her expression was torn between empathy and fear. He only wasn't able to tell what she was scared of. Maybe even him? Because why would they put him in a coma for that long that he might have come used to the narcotics? Why even save him? Kyle had wanted him dead. So why wasn't he?  
"I'm Alex", the red-haired woman looked at him, trying to smile; somehow she reminded him of Cat right now.  
She had often smiled like that, trying to cover her true feelings, her true emotions. Evan had learned with time to look through that facade, maybe because his smile had been one and the same. he could tell that Alex was used to this expression, to move her lips into a form that was meant to reassure, to give hope and strength. Somehow he wasn't surprised when she told him: "I am your nurse." It was almost too obvious that this was true.  
The way Alex leaned towards him, her expression was meant to show him that she was his caretaker and that he was safe with her. Yet her eyes couldn't lie to him. They both knew that he wasn't safe her and Evan instantly knew that she wasn't either. How could she otherwise fail to give him that illusion?  
He wanted to answer but even without that tube he figured that he wasn't able to speak. All he had was his eyes following her, looking at her and it was astonishing to realize how much he could perceive with them. Like how Alex seemingly relaxed slightly. Maybe because his heart rate calmed down. It was only her with him and she didn't look like she wanted to harm him. Or was she that insanely good in faking? Could he be so blind? He had been in the past. His intern, his girl-friend, the woman he loved. They all had managed to deceive him. He had focused on the wrong things in life and it all had lead to this.  
"I know you must have many questions and I wish I could answer them"; she continued, and her voice was trembling a little.  
Evan's eyes focused back on her face, reading its tiny movements. Suddenly she felt her hand in his and he would have flinched, if he hadn't been completely paralyzed. The instinct however was still there and for e second he swore he felt tensing up, although just on the inside. This gesture was one of a good nurse. He had seem some in his short career of a surgeon. She obviously was one the patients talked about with a smile. It was nice to feel her warm fingers surrounding his cold palm and strange how he wasn't able to reply with closing his hand around hers. Not being able to follow your instinct is more than strange. It's surreal and it makes reality feel like a dream.  
"I think you know exactly where you are", Alex spoke lowly and Evan stared directly into her eyes and she nodded before she looked down - maybe at his hand. "I am not one of them. I don't even know where we are. I have been here for months I guess, because they thought I might be helpful. But I wasn't really." Her glance returned to him. "I don't know why they haven't killed me either", she eventually said terrified as if she never had even dared to speak out this thought and now she realized how true it was. "They interrogated me over and over for weeks, locked me away until you came here. I think I am still alive because of you."  
Evan felt how her fingers tightened around his.  
"You have been in a coma for almost four months, Evan. And as far as I know it wasn't meant for you to wake up", Alex almost told him this without any emotion, maybe a hint of sympathy and if he had doubt about her being what she had claimed to be, he now knew that she hadn't lied. This was a way one tells you that you have a terminal disease and somehow he feared his situation was just as bad. Maybe even worse. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew what had happened to him.


	5. Resurrection - part three

As her words sunk into his mind Evan they pulled realization along with them like a stone being throne into a lake, causing spiral waves. He was just that. The only reaction Alex was able to see was in his eyes, everything else was calm, but on the inside everything changed. And those waves were his heart beat that sped up could see it in her expression: this was more than sympathy for him and fear of them. She did fear him as well. And his heart rate went faster when she stepped back. Yet for whatever reason she still held his hand.  
"Evan, you need to calm down", her voice trembled stronger than the last time she had spoken and he was able to feel her own pulse increasing against his fingers. "You need to calm down."  
Her voice was everything else now, there was panic lurking in it waiting to attack, crawling up her throat like something else entirely in him. This tube was suffocating him, and he needed to breathe desperately. There it was again, this pain, this agony that he could remember so well. And now panic spread like a disease, clawing into him. it almost felt like being skinned alive, like his nails being pulled out. This pinching sound it the monitor racing drove him mad. He couldn't control it and still he was lying completely still. What was wring with him? He knew already  
"Evan, look at me", her hand was squeezing his fingers and he did.  
Alex was terrified, and still she somehow managed to stay right there where she was. As nurse what horrible things she might have seen? Something like this? Evan knew, but he couldn't, he wouldn't form it into words. Although he could hear her heartbeat almost louder in his ears, he could smell her cold sweat, feel her muscles tense, sense the air she was breathing out into his direction. This pain, it was burning him alive and it roared inside his head like an explosion. He knew. This wasn't just pain. It was more. So much more. Evan could see that distorted, warped thin in her eyes, where his reflection should me. And he pressed his lids shut, sensing a tear running down his temple.  
"Evan, please", Alex whispered now.  
There was something utterly strange about the sound of her voice about her posture, about how she held his hand. Yet his heart rate slowed down a little, while hers didn't. Not a bit.  
"You're hurting me", she explained and Evan's eyelid flung open and his neck tensed as he forced open his hand, that felt like it wasn't his own.  
Again his own breath sped up just like his heart. He sense how Alex pulled her hand and he felt the aching urge to apologize. There still was the tube in his throat.  
His eyes moved towards them before he even consciously perceived the steps in the corridor that was behind that door. And she saw it.  
"Don't move", she whispered, letting go of her hurt hand to hide it behind her back as Sorenson returned.  
"What is going on!" the man said before looking, because as he did, he didn't even bring out an 'oh' of dawning.  
"I think he might realize what is going on", Alex said with a shivering voice.  
"Have you told him?" his tone however was icy.  
"No, I ... I didn't", she shook her head and avoided the agent's glance.  
"It's interesting that he seems wide awake", Sorenson looked at Evan and he - although still mostly immovable - felt that gaze. "This might be an advantage. I will have to inform ... the others." he added after a moment of consideration. "If there is any change, report it immediately."  
Alex nodded and Sorenson left.  
Just as the door fell into its lock she turned back towards Evan bringing that hand up she had gripped placing the fingers of her other around it as if she needed to protect it. He needed to swallow, he couldn't. Not because of his paralysis but because of that tube in his throat. His breath was uneven again.  
"I can't", Alex started searching for words everywhere but in his face. "I cannot help you. You need to calm down. I know it's hard" her head and shoulders moved along with the syllables showing her effort to reach his reason. Something about that made him angry and this wasn't like him. This whole reaction to this wasn't like him.  
"Yes", he heard her voice almost in his head now; it sounded easier and he noticed that the monitor was beeping less annoyingly. "Yes, good."  
Alex sounded like she had no idea what to say, yet knew that she had to say something.  
His skin didn't feel like it was being scratched and ripped from his bones anymore. That was when he sensed her hand on his lower arm, stroking it actually. And this even though he had hurt her just before. There were three faster beeps from that monitor again as he looked up at her in confusion finding her to smile at him. A different one as before.  
"You're sorry, I know", she said softly now. "I guess we both didn't see that coming", her hand stopped and he didn't like that. "But you're good now. You're..." Alex cut herself off and Evan figured that she had been about to say something typical like that he was going to be okay. She didn't. As a matter of fact she kept silent, looking at him, her thumb started stroking again. Once. Twice. And Evan was grateful that she did just that and kept looking at him. Still he was able to see a reflection in her blue eyes. This time however he recognized it.


	6. Resurrection - part four

Little wrinkles appeared between Alex's brows showing that she was pondering about something, because the corners of her lips stayed where they were, not moving down. It made him wonder and he didn't realize that watching her kept him occupied enough to distract him from everything else, from what he feared to have learned about himself until realization formed itself out of his thoughts like a cloud out of damp. Being unsure if he could trust her or not, in the end he was grateful that she was here with him, ordered or not, because of the fact that she was sitting down on the rim of his bed right now instead of moving away as far as possible.  
"I will try to be as honest as I can", she avoided to look at him again. "I will tell you everything that I am allowed to. First, you should move as less as possible because there is a camera right above the door."  
And this exactly was the reason why she sat how she sat and why she talked the way she talked her face showing into the other direction.  
"I am not a spy or an agent. And I know about the camera because I was teased about talking to you even though you were in a coma and that I was so naive to believe I wouldn't be monitored. So you see why I can't pull out the tube. But if you want me to I can tell then something has changed and they maybe will pull it out or try to sedate stronger again." Now Alex looked at him and her eyes were once more sad and worried. Despite that her hand still rested on his forearm. He doubted that she would take his hand so quickly again. Evan wanted to know if he had broken it or if this was just a contusion. Not that it was any less bad. He never had hurt a woman in his life, apart from Layla of course.  
Feeling her fingers around his forearm was strangely soothing and somehow he knew that she wasn't doing this for the first time. Four months. She had told him that he had been here for four months and she even longer. It was a strange insight.  
"My name is Alex Salter, and I worked as a nurse at the New York General until I met again my fiancée who was supposed to be dead, killed in action in Afghanistan", Alex's glance dropped again as she talked about herself and Evan figured that she wanted to gain his trust, knowing that here right now there was no one to be trusted.  
This was Muirfield.  
Yet as he heard her story his heartbeat sped up again. This sounded too familiar but then again this was too much of a coincidence.  
"They did something to him. He tried to warn me, but I wouldn't listen. I just thought I could just take up our lives again. I didn't want to listen to his friend's warning.  
Alex couldn't be talking about Vincent Keller, could she?  
Evan knew that tone of her voice: regret, sorrow, guilt. he knew it much too well. And she shook her head breathing in deeply to calm herself.  
"Maybe another time", she tried to smile but there were tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I am so used to talk to you that I forget you never really listened before."  
This made him feel bad, and somehow almost hurt, as if she was wrong about it.  
"However, this is how I got here. Because I was too stupid to listen to their warnings. Even when my life had been threatened. A friend of mine had been killed because of me. I don't know why they didn't kill me. I can't imagine that they planned this right from the start."  
Evan wasn't so sure about this, knowing what Muirfield had already done and he wasn't even thinking about him in that moment. Cat. Catherine. He didn't even know if they had gotten out. Though the chances had been good. Hopefully they had been able to stay out of Muirfield's reach. His own life had been worthless if it hadn't been for Cat and they have stripped him of that. What was he know?  
Evan's own thoughts were back-flipping in his head uncontrollably. He wasn't used to this. Usually he had been in control of his mind. Though heading into an absolutely wrong direction,it had always been his choice. He never blamed Catherine for it. Evan was firmly convinced that she hadn't lied to him out of misleading. She had wanted to protect the one she loved and it had not been him. That had been his had been his fault.  
"Evan, calm down", Alex's voice reached him again and not until now he heard the fast beeping of his heart monitor.  
It shocked him, terrified him even that he had been too far gone from reality, sucked into his own mind that he had lost perception of reality. This was not him. He was not himself anymore. There was no way of calming down. He couldn't even move, get rid of what took over his sanity, like a fire claiming a building that supposed to be invincible. He couldn't even tell Alex that he wasn't able to calm himself down. This was a panic attack- a sole reasonable thought flashed through his mind, a part of his old self - he knew - and panicky he tried to follow it. Evan focused on the symptoms and it was obvious that he was having a severe panic attack. The downside was: along with this, he could feel how the fire that had been planted into him by Muirfield was eating him alive once more and he had no idea how to stop it. If this was him now, if he was like Vincent now, how was it even possible to willingly stop this?


	7. Resurrection - part five

And all he could do was clinging to his sanity, clawing into the strains of thoughts keeping them together and with them himself, while he felt his body tear and rebuild itself into something else. He was out of control and for the first time he was relieved that his body was pumped with narcotics to keep it paralyzed. Right then the clearest thought was that if he hadn't been chemically restraint he possibly hurt her, maybe even kill her. He had been barely unconsciously able to move his hand and almost broke hers.  
This was more than a nightmare come true. His greatest fear, his greatest terror had been killing someone again, had been repeating what he had done to Layla but it had always been in his control. He had fled from England, taken a job where he could do no harm and now. Now he was exactly what he had believed of Vincent. He was the monster. He was the rabid animal. He was that thing that had to be put down.  
There was no need to look into Alex's eyes to see the distortion of his own body, to see what he turned into. He sensed it with every fiber, with every cell of his body. Yet the most terrifying fact was that he was able to feel how his claws dug into the mattress beneath him, how they ripped the fabric. Evan pressed his eyes shut because he couldn't bear the idea of Alex moving away from him, her expression of horror. But he sensed the shifting of weight, the slight movement of her standing up.  
He needed to calm down; he needed to focus; he needed to breathe, but with that tube in his throat it was impossible. Without being able to calm down his respiration what could he possibly do to reclaim his body, when his monster was controlling it? It was like something had shoved him aside and forcing his body to do like it pleases. He could sense his muscles flex, the effort of trying to break the paralysis with a force Evan never could have imagined, a power that would have ripped strains and broken bones. This was not him. Someone had put him into a body that was not his own, to feel an anger that was not his. or was it?  
His very on thoughts slipped through his fingers as if they were jelly, dissolving with every try of him to catch them and claim them back. Maybe if he tensed enough to fell into a cramp nothing would happen, maybe the pain would shut him down.  
There was something else. A sound a coolness seeping through is skin, his cheeks.  
"Shhh", that sound wasn't his, the direction was wrong.  
Evan's eyes snapped open and it was Alex. Her cool hands were holding his face and hers was almost directly above his. Was she insane?  
There was no other sound but her voice and somewhere in the back of his drowning mind he figured that she had gotten up and away to shut off the monitor - even though this would call someone again.  
"Evan, it's okay", she said while a series of emotions tried to reign her expression: worry, panic, sorrow, empathy, pleading.  
Were there tears in her eyes? Why?  
"Evan, look at me", her voice was more than trembly, it was thick and husky, but most of all he could feel her thumbs brushing his skin, that felt so strange, hastily like it was important for him to calm down as quickly as possible. "Breathe, just imagine", she shook her head slowly, trying to picture her words herself. "That you just woke up from a nap at the beach. The sun is shining, you can hear the ocean breaking onto the shore. Smell the salt in the air. And I just mocked you that you will end up with a sunburn."  
Alex smiled and for a glimpse of an eye it was pristine. Still there was no way keeping up the illusion and he wasn't mad at her because of that. Evan couldn't bear the reflection he saw in her eyes. This was not him, and yet it was what he was now. He tried to keep up the image she had given him, to picture her words and form it into an alternate reality.  
A jolt shook his body as he heard the door being slammed open.  
"What is wrong?" he didn't recognize that voice and kept staring at Alex.  
"He can't breathe with the tube", she answered just like the nurse she was.  
"Step away."  
This was exactly what Evan didn't wanted, what he almost feared and somehow she saw it.  
"I'm right here", she whispered and vanished out of his sight until his head moved to follow her.  
Alex stared at him in exactly the same way he felt about it. He looked at the man who had approached as he turned his head a bit: "Get the guards, Sorenson and the T9."  
Whatever it meant: Evan was pretty sure that T was short for tranquilizer.  
"I won't pull the tube when he's like that", the doctor looked at Alex but it was Evan who hurt these words.  
Above all because he knew that this would been exactly his own words.  
"The longer you wait, the faster the paralysis will wear off. Do it now and you can get out of here", Alex almost hissed at him. "Do it. Do it or I will."  
Her tone was that dominant all of the sudden that the dark haired man nodded and stepped back towards the bed.  
"You know what to do", he said avoiding to look at Evan and stung him.  
He knew because he had been a doctor. So when that man was finished loosening the straps and counted down to three he exhaled. He wanted to, yet he wasn't fully in control. So as the tube was pulled out it felt like that man was pulling out his throat and everything went black.


	8. Red - part one

The first thing that came back to him was his hearing, although it seems like being rather memories. Eerily it was close to being back imprisoned in darkness, in his own personal hell, with nothing left but himself, despite his hearing. And yet what he heard would have been something Evan never would relate towards him, if it hadn't for the altered circumstances he had been trapped in. These sounds that almost were deafening, these very first noises were roars and snarls, followed by something like ripping and tearing. He expected to remember screams and the sound of a person choking on its own blood. But it wasn't that. It was Alex shouting his name as clear as a bell and this single memory terrified him beyond his own imagination. Yet there sang no fear for life in it, did it? He wasn't sure, he couldn't tell, because he didn't trust himself. However she had shouted his name and what followed was a door being slammed shut and Alex yelling "No!"  
This was even worse, but his heart already was racing and couldn't possibly sped up any further. When he asked himself how this could become any worse it was Alex again who said his name, her voice ever so trembly and much too close. And in his head he saw himself again, standing at that table, the scalpel still in his hand, hearing that single deafening tone of a heart monitor showing a zero line. Him killing Layla. Once again he heard his name and he realized that this right now was reality.  
"Evan, please"; she barely whispered and yet she was that close that he could feel her breath on his skin; she was far too close.  
This feeling was strange and odd, He could smell her, the soap she had been using this morning, even a trail of the toothpaste. All these scents invading his brain, becoming information. She was scared, almost terrified, even that he could smell and yet there was something else, something beyond the fact that there was no blood. No blood?  
The darkness was sucked away like a star by a black hole and the room he had been lying in for four months took form and color. He wasn't in his bed anymore. In fact he was standing. If he could even think of him doing this right now. Evan could feel how he bared his teeth, how his muscled flexed, the tension in his shoulders, his neck craned, his claws crushed into the wall he was facing. But there was something right between him and that stonework.  
It was not quite as tall as him, and it had bright red hair and big blue eyes staring up at him almost paralyzed and most important it had her voice, speaking to him, softly and shivering: "Evan... please."  
He blinked, as he recognized her, instantly knowing that they were alone, that the smashing door he recalled had been that doctor whole had bailed on them, leaving Alex as his, no, at the beast's mercy. He swallowed down the big lump in his throat that almost cracked it. His eyes fled her face just to see out of the corner that her expression changed. There was no way of moving right now. The cramp he had hoped to take over his body had come too late. Somehow he had gotten out of his bed, and changed. There was nothing else he could remember. And now he had ended up hustling Alex against the wall, threatening her like an animal. A monster that he was now.  
Evan wanted to speak, but he couldn't. The only noise that came from his throat sounded oddly like a purr. Still Alex looked at him as if she was able to comprehend that sound and gave him a insecure smile. He tried to ease, but he couldn't, but she didn't move either. Rethinking his position Evan wasn't sure anymore if he really had been threatening her, or solely doing this, since his arms weren't entirely stretched out to the farthest distance. So it rather seemed like intimidating her.  
Trying to read himself like being a stranger was more than odd, but this wasn't him. Evan didn't even feel entirely like himself. However he had stopped growling at Alex. It was then as he realized that despite being aware he still wasn't in charge, or rather - as he tired not to admit - his reason. The way he behaved and perceived appeared to be pure instinct. And right now he kept where he was, glancing down at her, watching her every move, like claiming his terrain. He didn't dare to follow the question hiding in the dark corner of his mind. But Alex looked back at him. her pulse and breathing still heightened, her skin clammy, pressing herself against the wall along with her palms looking back up, giving him that smile. It wasn't the uncertainty about whether he would hurt her or not, but rather what he would do next.  
"It's okay", she said softly, keeping up that tiny smile on her lips. "No one's here but me. No one is going to harm you right now."  
Evan could sense how she moved and how she brought up one hand slowly before he was able to see it. Yet it was more confusing to know that whatever reigned his body right now was slowly being able to move again as the crap lessened, but it didn't. He wanted to move, he needed to move. This wasn't him. was desperate to make sure that he wouldn't hurt her. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry and still he had to stand by and sense how she carefully touched his face and how his very own head nudged itself inside her palm. it felt so strange that he wasn't sure anymore if this was this monster or himself, or if he was the monster or the monster was him, or he was both. He felt dizzy and his legs started to shake.


	9. Red - part two

Alex hand eventually stopped shivering. She had tried to keep it calm and yet Evan had been able to sense it. Not it was him who trembled, as his tensing body started to relax. The expression of her face mirrored just this. She appeared to be relieved, seemed to be certain that he was regaining control over his own body, but Evan wasn't sure. Maybe he never could ever be sure about this and maybe that was the real reason why he shivered, like being in shock. Theoretically this transformation was some sort of shock for his body, he tried to explain. It would be logical. Still he wasn't able to follow this thought because he couldn't focus. This hand on his cheek was too distracting, yet it seemed to be the only thing changing the state he was in, as if that creature he had become remembered that it meant no harm. Evan asked himself how often he had changed being in that artificial coma and how often Alex had to stand by, ending up in trying to calm him down. This was something he did expect from Muirfield, that they would have experimented with him while he was out. Probably they hadn't even planned for him to wake up.  
A second hand closing the frame around his face send electricity through his body and Evan looked back at Alex. Her face was so easy to read, so differently from Cats which always had been collection of riddles. Her expression was close to happy, a mixture of relief and optimism, but her eyes were so sad. It wasn't pity; it was sympathy and that was something Evan hadn't seen for a long, long time.  
"It's okay", she whispered now and kept looking at him, into his eyes, and he had no explanation why.  
His reflection was his own again and still she didn't move away like she felt that he needed comfort, though he would never ask for. In her eyes he could see that terrified, shocked and deranged man who looked like him, who realized once more what had happened to him. Evan had always been a man of science and facts, someone who wouldn't flee into denial, he rather fled from himself and now this was the only thing he wouldn't be able to do anymore.  
He noticed the embrace when he felt her hand at his neck and the other one on his back, which made him also realize that he more nothing but a hospital gown, and yet he was still too stunned by reality to think about it. The only thing that reached his mind where Alex's whispered words: "You didn't hurt me." How could she tell that this was the most important thing?  
Again his body moved on his own, this time without this strange experience of someone else pulling the strings, when he replied her embrace insecurely. And when he did, Alex surprised him by tightening the hug. This wasn't just about comforting him anymore, but her as well. And he remembered how Alex had told him that she had been here for more than four months, longer than him. Evan could only imagine how alone she must have been, how frightened, how terrified even, and what she must have been through. She had been used to talk to him all the time. What a strange situation it must be for her that he was awake now and hadn't attack her?  
Suddenly it was him comforting her and this felt so much more relieving the other way around, apart from being surreal. Alex had slid down, suddenly stripped from all strength when he held her, and Evan listened to her erratic uneven breathing as she tried to stop herself from crying. He pressed his cheek against her red hair while she hid her face against his neck and glared holes into the wall right next to the ones his claws had created just moments before. This fact eased off the anger that blazed inside him because of her despair, because of Alex being so lost that she fled into the arms of a stranger, a thing that easily could kill her. Evan's jaw tensed and his body followed. Her fingers digging into the fabric stopped him from anger anew. He inhaled sharply.  
"I'm sorry", he felt her lips and breath against his skin and her voice in his veins.  
Alex shifted and wanted to move away but he couldn't open his arms to release her, maybe he didn't want to without knowing it. Evan expected her to tense, to be afraid, but she didn't. Instead her hand moved to his face again, making him look at her and not the wall.  
"You can let go of me now. I'm okay", she whispered hoarsely.  
And as if she was in charge of his muscles his hold on her eased, allowing her to step away.  
"I… I'm sorry", his voice was toneless and instantly his throat hurt.  
He couldn't even swallow.  
"Lay down, I'll get you some water", Alex said softly, smiling at him just the same as she assisted him stepping back to the bed on wobbly legs and Evan wondered how he was able to move around and tear his sheets as well as the lab coat of his doctor, that lay in rags on the ground.  
"They locked you in with me", he responded throaty.  
"They can also see what's going on inside", Alex answered and he looked back at her in disbelieve; so she added. "I guess they wanted to see what would happen to me."  
Evan could tell that she wanted to shrug, but failed and instead she quickly turned her head away so that he wouldn't see her expression. Still he knew that there were tears in her eyes. He sat down and Alex instantly walked to the door to knock.  
"I'll be right back", she said without looking at him and paused, just to break off; they both knew that she couldn't make promises.


	10. Red part four

Evan was lost. He felt like floating in darkness again, like losing himself once more. But this darkness wasn't pitch black, it wasn't even gray, it was red, blood red, and he was drowning in it. He could feel himself choke and panic, his pulse vibrating in every vein of his body, his muscles clenching painfully, cramping as if he was having a seizure. And still everything he saw was red, and everything he felt was wet and gooey, and all he could taste was rust. Blood. It flashed through his thoughts and all he could see was him tearing her apart, him, the monster, ripping her into pieces, coloring that white, clean room in stains of red.  
He could even hear her scream his name, yet it wasn't screaming. In his mind because she wasn't able to, due to her ripped throat and still she managed to say his name, pleading, whispering, over and over again, like a prayer. Evan didn't understand why his heart beat went down, or the heaving of his chest lessened, or why he sensed a strange warmth on his cheeks. It couldn't be blood because no matter how hard he tried to wipe it off, it kept being there."Evan, relax", he heard this second word for the first time, or hadn't he perceived it before?  
The red was still consuming him but somehow it felt less real all of the sudden. So he did the only thing that seemed to help him focus, and through this insanity: the voice he was hearing. It was so familiar, and he clung to it like a log. And all of this felt even more like a dejá vu now, like he had been through this a thousand times, without being able to remember it.  
It felt like the blood was gluing his eyes shut, but he felt the desperate need to open them, tear those lids apart. And it hurt. Not opening his eyes but the bright, clean white light that flooded the room so artificially, emphasizing the fact that this room, this jail, had no window. The light seemed to wash away whatever had tried to drown him, dull him, and when he adapted to the burning perception he could see her.  
"Alex"; Evan heard his own voice, maybe a little deeper then he recalled.  
"You're back", she stated and her smile was nothing but a sign of relief, since she obviously was worried before and not until then he realized that he was able to speak, but not move.  
"Are you hurt?" he asked weakly and worried and Alex shook her head, her lips forming a thin line failing to hide the lie.  
She could see it in his face that Evan called her bluff.  
"It's.. it's nothing, just bruises, you …. you underestimate your strength", she quickly spoke out and he exhaled sharply, escaping her eyes.  
The warmth on his cheek had faded and now he could feel it at his shoulder. It was Alex' hand. He wasn't even able to shrug it away.  
"You burned up the tranquilizer too fast and went into this fugue state", she explained, nurse as she was, "I had to… sedate you."  
Evan didn't need to look at her face since her voice told him already that she felt bad about it.  
"Don't be sorry", he spoke almost normally now. "I'm a monster… I…"  
Her tightening grip made him stop.  
"I thought that as well, you know", she said lowly. "Once. I was too scared, too shocked, to devastated that the dream I once had was irreversibly destroyed that I…. couldn't see that nothing about him had changed. In fact he had become more. I was just too blind to see that. And because of me they almost got him."  
Now Evan had to look at her, hearing Alex' words, asking himself about whom she might be speaking, but there was only one answer and he knew it.  
"Vincent Keller", he said.  
"Yes", Alex answered and blinked away a tear. "He is a good man, caring, compassionate and kind. What they turned him into didn't change anything about him. It doesn't have to change you either. I had enough time to think about that."


	11. Red part five

Silence filled the room as Alex hesitated and silence spread into the room like fog.  
"You know Vincent?" she asked in confusion.  
"No", Evan shook his head, looking away like he could run from these memories that e had added onto the list of deeds he would feel eternally guilty about. "Not really. I met him ... briefly", his eyes returned to her, so see Alex's reaction to what he added: "I was friends with Cat, Catherine Chandler."She froze and yet again he was able to read that flood of emotions off her face, almost too many to catch, like a whole story just rained off of her: loss, pain, regret, gratitude and trying to move on.  
"You know her", Evan said just to stop silence from reclaiming the room and Alex nodded, fidgeting with her hands at which she looked at, realizing that she had shown him too much already.  
"Yes", she managed to answer. "She tried to warn me, to save me."  
Again the lack of words waved out into the room now with no one to stop it. Neither Evan nor Alex looked at the other drifting away in memories of a life outside, a life that seemed so far gone and away like it had just been a dream. Both of them knew better, but doubt was a icy grasp, asking them if there would ever be a way to return to something normal. Evan was sure that there wasn't a possibility for him. For Alex on the other hand he saw something like hope. She was still human and none of them.  
"That's how you got here?" he eventually asked, realizing that he was incapable to move when he automatically wanted to take Alex's hand.  
"I found out that Vincent was still alive by accident", she frowned and eventually looked at him again. "By her accident actually", she tried to smile.  
"I remember!" Evan's British accent now was more than obvious as his memory kicked in. "You were her nurse. I should have recognized you. ... your hair ..." he lowered his voice as his thoughts trailed of.  
This explained why she seemed so familiar to him and yet rationally on brief meeting on which they had barely spoken to each other didn't appear to be enough for this emotion that made him trust her almost blindly, speak to her that openly and probably not enough to not kill her being that thing they turned him into. Evan was still a man of science and yet somehow he felt that urge to believe that his subconsciousness knew that she had been taken care of him for the last four months.  
Then he realized that her cheeks were slightly flushed and she tried to hide her almost scared smile behind her hand that brushed one strain of her read hair behind her ear. Even thought of topics they could talk about just to distract them from this situation but whatever his mind came up with, it would just end with something that lead to this: him being a surgeon, or her working at the hospital, him working with the police.  
"They want you paralyzed and awake", Alex suddenly changed the topic as she made a step closer to check on his infusion, which he hadn't noticed before. "They want to use your new state for their advantage."  
Evan swallowed and felt the icy grip of fear claiming his limbs he couldn't move, until something warm broke it: Alex's hand on his lower arm. He looked up to her while she continued speaking lowly: "I don't know how many injections you got and they didn't speak to me. I just heard them saying that it's the most advanced version they got and they dropped Vincent's name. Like they had used something of his. I just know that they started testing on you about two months ago."  
He could feel that fire blazing up inside of him again. So what was he like? The Hulk? Anger and fear was triggering this? Could other emotions do that as well? And then he realized that this exactly was what Alex was speaking about.  
"They tested your physical reaction, now they want..."  
"To check the physical ones", he continued for her and tried to calm down; it was so obvious. "They couldn't get him, so they turned me into him?"  
She stared at him in shock, like she had never even thought of a possibility heading into that direction. Ironically her tightening grip around his forearm calmed him down, because he could focus on it.  
"Will you be here?" he asked hoarsely, confused about his breaking voice and even more about that hole appearing in his chest when she shook her head.  
"It's... it's terrible enough to hear you", she whispered as if she hadn't wanted to speak out her thoughts, so she quickly added, bringing her eyes back to his. "I'm the one watching over your recovery. But I'm ... I'm sure they won't torture you... like physically."  
Evan wasn't sure if she was failing to lie or just terrified by whatever was in her mind right now. He could hear how wildly her heart was beating, how she threatened to hyperventilate. In fact he couldn't almost smell her fear - like one might have said - he actually did, just like the cold sweat appearing on her palms.  
"So you'll be back", he tried to smile and she instantly responded to that, with a careful smile.  
Now Evan couldn't stop imagining her standing outside his room, having to listen to his screams he couldn't recall, or could he? Was everything just hidden in the back of his mind? Could he possibly access to what the beast had seen while he was out? Did he want to? And yet when it came to what Alex had said he hadn't been able to move, had he? SO many questions...


	12. Restraint part one

The time for conversation had been over just in that moment. When the door was opened and two men in white lab coats entered. They gave Alex one straight look and she almost dropped everything. The only thing that somehow help Evan to stay calm was that somehow she managed to stroke her fingertips down the inside of his forearm to his hand, briefly squeezing it as she left. She didn't look at him, she was obedient, at least on the surface. Yet that little gesture showed him where her loyalties were. And that was the true reason his heart jumped. She didn't know him, really, did she? He couldn't imagine Muirfield giving her a file about him and if they did, wouldn't that mean she was secretly on their side? Was she a spy? A mole even? His eyes followed her leaving the room almost hastily. Automatically his hearing concentrated on her as well. Her heart was racing, just like her breathing and just the moment she left that room, letting the door shut behind her, she slumped against the wall directly next to it, pressing her back to the wall, trying to calm herself down, swallowing dryly. Alex was close to a panic attack. He could listen to her inhaling through her nose, exhaling through her mouth, telling herself to calm down. She was terrified, scared, worried, in pain. A mole wouldn't behave that way. Alex was panicking because of him. Because of him.  
A pain on his arm broke his concentration and pulled his senses back into the room, as well as his eyes on the needle in his arm. It wasn't an injection, just a test.  
"That's good", the male of the white coats said and the woman nodded and took a note on her tablet.  
He hadn't seen one of them before. Both had dark short hair, but that were the only similarity they had. She was almost pretty; he looked like he had had a serious case of acne in his teens. His eyes were brown, hers were somewhere in between blue and gray. He looked like biting on a lemon; she smiled at Evan almost flirting. Not that he cared because right now they were picking and poking him.  
"Looks like he is aware", she said, still smiling and this time it made him feel uncomfortable. "But immovable."  
"Just as prepared", the guy nodded.  
Evan brought a part of his attention back to the outside, where Alex still leaned against the wall, but she was about to get company, as he heard a pair of high heels heading into her direction. And Alex tensed up. He distorted his lips as he felt another needle in his leg, but his eyes were on the door. The doctors noticed, but didn't comment, he only heard the woman's fingertips on the screen of the tablet as she made more electronic notes on his reaction and behavior.  
"Alex", the woman outside sort of greeted his caretaker and she tensed even more; this time however he tensed as well - as much as it was possible in his almost full paralysis.  
Evan knew that voice; he knew that person; he knew that perfume, realizing that he hadn't been aware of that fragrance before.  
"Agent Sinclair", Alex responded, failing miserably at trying to keep her voice calm.  
It was Claire. His fake girlfriend. She possessed the infamy to show up here. Evan felt that acid fire blazing up in him again, like a heartburn and then he realized that Alex had greeted her back, which only meant that they had met at least one time before, which meant she already had been that impudent to visit him when he was in an even more pathetic state.  
"Why he's upset all of the sudden?" he could hear the guy as if he had been shoved into the distance, while his hearing concentrated on the two women in the corridor, that seemed to be quite long and his room appeared to be in the center of it.  
Evan would have been awed by his new ability, if he hadn't been fighting to keep that beast within restraint.  
"Sinclair", the woman answered and started typing rapidly. "He had shown reactions to her when he wasn't awake. He sensed her being even outside of this room and apparently being awake doesn't change that.  
Those words, Evan had no idea how to take them. It made him just more furious, knowing that Claire had been here before, that they had tested his reaction to him. But somehow knowing that even when being out he had been reacting to her presence, was somehow strangely calming and terrifying, yet most of all confusing. He felt that lava inside of him vanishing. Not entirely, but appreciably. Evan swallowed dryly. This meant that even being a beast he was himself? That creature they turned him into was still him somehow. Though he didn't want to accept this, deep inside him he knew it was true. He had spoken to Vincent, he had witnessed it. Although Evan wouldn't want anything else than to be some sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, even in that story it was more or less one and the same person. Vincent Keller was a good man and he was both as well. If they really had based the change of his DNA on Vincent's there was no argument against the fact that he was both as well. Even now when he thought he was entirely human he was using senses that were inhuman.  
It was something almost impossible to admit, but being honest to himself Evan knew that he didn't feel like himself. Not like his former self at least. He knew he was different than before, down to a cellular basis different. The sooner he accepted that, the earlier he might be able to use this for his own advantage. Vincent was able to restraint the beast, he was able to call upon it. Evan hat witnessed it. And then this man had spend years to adapt to his change.  
Now it was Evan who closed his eyes breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. Like Alex had done it before. And he concentrated on her trembling voice, listening to her as she said to Claire: "He is awake."  
"I know", was the woman's response, that woman that had lied herself into his life, stole and betrayed him, faked a relationship with him.  
There was no way calming himself down thinking of this. His heart monitor was speeding up again, and this time it was deafening. This time that acid fire inside of him ruptured into an explosion.


	13. Restraint part two

Evan could feel it again, but this time he seemed to be even more aware, despite his anger, almost because he wanted it to happen: his skin trying to turn itself inside out, claws growing, tearing his fingers, teeth bursting into fangs trough his jaw. He heard himself growl lowly, but strangely enough the pain was less, because he was astonished. While his body was changing still retrained to his bed his sight was different as well, like he could see the heat radiating off Alex's and Claire's body. This was impossible.  
Somehow he didn't want to calm down, he wanted to show Claire that once she got in here how much he despised her, but then again, wouldn't that give her the triumph? Evan focused on what his enhanced eyes were able to perceive and tried to regain that hearing that had him allowed to eavesdrop, while he did his best to ignore those two doctors watching him closely. It was a little amusement for him that he was confusing them.  
Right in that moment Claire entered the room and he had missed whatever she had told Alex whose heart still was racing and she didn't seem to calm down, quite the contrary. She appeared to have started to cry. And Evan couldn't help but be upset about it. Just in that moment he realized that he had turned and still was aware of himself. Glaring at Claire she obviously was stunned to see him like that, which is why he looked down, noticing that he had sat up, at least as far as his restraints allowed him to move.  
"Increase the dose", his fake-girlfriend ordered the doctors.  
"But the…" the woman with her Eastern-European accent wanted to object but Clare cut her off: "Put him down!"  
Then it dawned to Evan: she was scared of him. Her pulse increased just like her breathing the second she had seen him like that: warped into a creature she had been send out to hunt down, sitting up halfway, staring into her eyes, recognizing her. And that was when he started chuckling and he couldn't stop. Although he wanted to. All of this was just a bad joke, wasn't it. To him it all did make absolutely no sense. His own laughter sounded strange in his hears, but he didn't care. he just lay back and continued chuckling and with that, he calmed down. And army of ants turned around his skin, pushed back fangs and claws alike all of this was just a strange and twisted fairy tale. When he looked back at Claire again, her jaw had dropped, just like the two doctors standing next to him, which just worsened his laughter. And he couldn't stop.  
"What is happening?" his fake ex inquired.  
"I…I'm not sure", the male doctor stammered and the female was hectically scrolling though her notes.  
"What is happening!" she demanded louder and Evan wasn't sure if this because she started to panic or if she just tried to predominate him.  
"His body seems to react…", the doctor tried to explain.  
Evan couldn't hear them anymore. His skin was burning, just like those tickling ants had turned to acid. He was having some sort or allergic reaction to the higher dose of whatever they gave him. His body was trying to fight it, but somehow it poisoned himself. The infusion had to stop. Why didn't they pull it out? He was fighting against his restraints now which obviously just scared them.  
He wasn't sure if Claire moved around first or if it was the door that flung open, but he clearly heard her shouting Alex's name in that moment. Maybe a little before, maybe a little after. For him she was moving in slow motion, but he was sure that she was running, leaping towards him after an eternity of staring at the situation. His veins were evaporating. he could feel it. It was even worse than changing, worse than awaking, worse than everything. He barely felt how she pulled out the infusion needle, because he already started shaking. Evan felt something foamy and bitter in his mouth, how his body started cramping. Now he felt strangely separated from it again. He was having a seizure.  
She was shouting something and he was sure she demanded sodium chloride so he might be able to wash out whatever his body was fighting.  
"What did you give him!" she yelled at someone. "You added something! What was it?"  
Did she really shout that? Everything was numb and cloudy and everything was pain. Just like in his coma. Did they try to get him back? Was this what all of this was about?  
"Evan?" that was his name.  
"Evan!" something warm on his face, a pressure on his chest; was he having a heart attack now?  
Somehow he didn't care.  
"Stay with me!" these words were slapped into his face and he felt his eyes focus, making him realize that there wasn't that kind of pressure on his chest, but Alex.  
Her sky-blue eyes were looking sight back at him, holding his face in her hands, knelling on his bed, her legs straddled over his body and he coughed out the foam in his mouth to inhale deeply.  
"Look at me", Alex ordered, a strain of her read hear rebelliously loosened from behind her ear and fell flawlessly next to her face and then his, touching his cheek like cool silk.  
He was burning up.  
"Don't let them kill you, Evan, stay with me", her voice traveled miles being far away and then close again; he coughed once more.  
That was the real problem, wasn't it? He was supposed to be dead and he wanted to be. They stole it from him and now they gave it back, so why should he fight?  
"Please", was is a whisper.  
His eyes focused back on hers. Tears? Were her thumbs stroking his cheeks? Was she lowering her head against his forehead?  
"Don't leave me", this was a whisper and he could hear it inside of his head.


	14. Restraint part three

There he was: restraint to a bed, close to death because some black ops company had been testing on him, reprogrammed his DNA, turned him into something non-human, into a creature they didn't even understand themselves. And the only thing from keeping him fade away was this woman with red hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen, begging him not to leave her alone.  
Evan hadn't chosen this, he never had wanted this, she shouldn't even be alive. And it dawned to him that he wasn't. Whoever he had been that man was dead and this was not him. That man he was now shouldn't exist. It was wrong. Still there were things in his hands, there was still a choice he could make and he knew that he couldn't chose to leave Alex at their mercy. They had kept her alive because of him, because they needed a caretaker and no one would voluntarily become his caretaker. With him gone what would happen to her? With him dead he wouldn't have to care about that, he wouldn't regret that, would he? There was one thing if one had to live with a decision, but what about dying with a decision?  
"Evan!"  
His eyes focused to hers and suddenly the spasms stopped and he waited for the world to turn dark again, but it didn't. He still was surrounded by the bright artificial light, yet the only thing he saw was Alex with her blue eyes and her red her and her face so close that her noses almost touched. She still held his face and she could feel her palms move. It wasn't because she was moving. She was holding perfectly still, keeping her eyes clinging to his. It was him. The army of ants had returned to change him back and the only real movement apart from his muscles, fangs, claws and bones turning back in to what seemed normal was his chest heaving heavily.  
Evan blinked, maybe because Alex's hair now completely slipped from her shoulders and hid their faces from the light, or because of that strange dizzy feeling in his head and stomach. His arms were tensing, even though he could barely move. Not because he wanted to free himself, but because he instinctively wanted to place his hands at her elbows which where resting at the sides of his chest. Maybe because he had felt a strange absolutely human impulse, even though he wasn't sure where that came from, to kiss her. There was no way for him to accomplish that, apart from maybe if he lifted his head. Just in that moment she took one hand away to get a peace of cloth and wipe away the foam at his mouth and to hesitate as she realized what he had done and what he had intended.  
No one but him heard her gasp, because the two doctors and the agent, who had been accompanied with another doctor were shouting at each other; not until now Evan heard it again, just like his heart rate on the monitor going down. They didn't notice. They suddenly just noticed that whatever happened had stopped.  
"You're going to be fine", Alex whispered and the doctors moved; she leaned down towards him and he could feel a short rush of adrenaline. "Thank you", she added almost inaudibly and then they pulled her off the bed.  
"Get her out of here", it was Claire's voice ordering that.  
"They tried to kill him", Alex spit out as the male doctors grabbed her arms and moved her out of the room; her eyes fixated on Claire. "They tried to kill him."  
His fake ex pulled her eyes away from Alex when the door was shut by the first male doctor and landed on him, who automatically clenched his hands into fists.  
"What happened", Claire demanded to know, keeping her eyes on Evan's.  
It was hard for him to read her face. He couldn't tell if she was worried or concerned, stressed or afraid, but definitely she was uncertain about something and it had to do with him. And now? Did she wanted to hide the fact that they tried to kill him?  
"His body fought the tranquilizer. The virus must have interacted with it", the woman with the Eastern European accent tried to explain and his ex ripped her gaze away: "You want to tell me that you mixed the tranq with the virus? Did Professor ... didn't he say that you should he cautious with that? How do you think we are able to keep him restraint? With normal drugs?"  
"An anti-virus", Evan murmured, being so shocked about what he just learned that he didn't realize he had spoken out his thought.  
When they transported the altered gen-code via a virus that was so strong that it reprogrammed his natural one and still were doing so, the only possibility to keep him paralyzed was to infect him with a counter virus that would be inferior in the end but still weaken him enough to keep him restraint.


	15. Restraint - part four

Waking up this time was just the same as diving out of water after being forced to hold breath for much too long. Instinctively Evan wanted to sit up, pull in as much air as he could, but there was still no way to move. It felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, along with the pressure and pain. Yet again he was alive when he thought he wouldn't be.  
The light was dazzling, seemingly flickering as he blinked and looked around, trying to find Alex. She wasn't with him. In fact he was alone, all alone this time in a room that wasn't the one they had him knocked out in. Evan could feel panic gnawing at his bones, like it was trying to swallow him, his pulse hunting ghosts, still his breath was uneven and shallow and the light burned in his eyes.  
He reminded himself to concentrate, to focus, gritting his teeth together, sucking in the air through them, pushing it out through his nose, forcing his breathing to calm down, somehow. It worked only slowly and a strange pain in his hands was oddly helping. Evan had been clenching his fits so hard that they seemed to cut him, until he realized that he probably did, with his own claws. Something he would have to get used to. This though flashed through his mind, creating a lump in his throat, making him struggle with calming down his breathing and pule once more. He would undo it, he decided. He would find a way. Once he got out of here. .  
Evan closed his eyes, focused on breathing once more, trying to find pictures behind his eyelids that would help him to compose himself. And he started imagining all those happy moments he had had with Cat. But they wouldn't help, ending in a blur, mixing themselves with guilt and chaos. He wasn't able to picture her without seeing him.  
Everything hurt and nothing changed, he barely kept up the rhythm he had chosen to breathe in. His ears were rushing and he saw the light burning through his closed lids. There was no peace, was there? He would be in this situation for the rest of his life, never being able to research and work on a cure because he would end up destroying everything in an emotional outbreak. How was Vincent Keller able to endure this? Evan knew before he finished that thought. Cat.  
He failed. Breathing out through his mouth, clawing into the sheets and mattress beneath his hands, feeling how he stained them with his own blood. Every fiber in his body hurt and he could sense him losing control over it, how the skin seemed to peel itself inside out again. Strangely the pain was less than he recalled. He needed to stop this. But how?  
He already heard her voice in his head before he saw her face and to him it felt so natural, so normal that he instantly knew that this was how it usually had gone. When he hadn't been conscious at all, when they had done test with him, triggering whatever was the course to his transforming into this vile, lethal creature they had created being unable to control it. This was how her voice had been so familiar. Not because he had met her once, just briefly in Cat's hospital room, but because she had been there for him the entire time he had been in this facility. It seemed like it was flooding his minds: things he had sensed, felt and heard, yet not seen. He could feel her hand on his lower arm, her shaky voice trying to soothe him, white she was fighting own her own terror. And then he remembered more. The way she smelled and even though it felt awkwardly inappropriate he dove in, trying to remember the different odors. The scent of the soap and her shampoo, mixed with her own. Mostly salt, and he knew that she had been crying a lot. It was strange, because once again it was familiar, like he had known her for ages. Ignoring the tremors his own body went through he followed his memories, her voice, how she told him about growing up with Vincent and his brothers, with J.T., how the boys always had been messing up she decided to become a nurse. Admittedly because Vincent was going to medical school. How she actually loved helping other people, how she dreamed about being brave herself for once, and travel around helping other people. But she never had dared to. She always had been too afraid. Not for herself, but of losing people.  
It was when he remembered how his eyes focused through that dazzling light for the first time being wide awake and yet not there, how he had seen her. So tired, so torn out and yet still smiling. This smile, so full of utter relief, and bare any fear or terror, and she didn't even know who he was, how many mistakes he had done, how mislead he was. He hadn't been worthy of Cat, he wouldn't be worthy for her either.  
Evan swallowed dryly and blinked. His breath was deep and steady as his eyes identified the different panels above him, hearing the light buzz lowly. The pain was gone and he sense the slightly soaked sheets beneath his fingertips as his palms rested flatly on his mattress. His body was completely still. He looked around. She still wasn't here. Yet he heard another noise and he looked up at its origin. A camera zooming in on him. A blinking red light.  
"Where is she?" his voice sounded raspy, almost like a growl, and somehow he preferred that it would have sounded more like that.


End file.
